The coming of the xenograft: A history of animal organ transplants

We’ve come a long way from the first human to human transplant in 1967, but the idea of using organs from animals is nothing new, explains Steven Cutts

In a world first, a genetically modified pig heart was transplanted into a patient in Maryland at the start of the year (University of Maryland School of Medicine via AP)

As I write these words, a man in America is alive and well with the heart of an animal still beating in his chest. What once was regarded as science fiction has suddenly become science fact.

Even in the best of circumstances, transplant surgery is not easy. The obstacles to success are too numerous to describe and as soon as one begins to contemplate organ transfer between two different species, the challenge becomes difficult to comprehend.

Organ transplants have been considered – and sometimes attempted – long before they had any real hope of working. In another age, the barriers to experimentation were much lower than they are today… back then, it didn’t seem to bother anyone too much when their experiments went wrong.